News - March 2020 RSS Feed

Passiontide – Passion Time This two-week period begins on the Saturday before the fifth Sunday of Lent, formerly called Passion Sunday. In the past, church statues and crosses and crucifixes were covered with veils, usually purple, simple and unadorned. Various authors describe different reasons for the veiling: shielding these beloved images helps us fast, in a sense, from images of God and his saints, and hunger for their return at the great Easter Solemnity. The shrouds also connote death, as the Church will journey through the Lord’s passion and death soon, and wait in silent vigil for the Resurrection at the end of the upcoming Holy Week. We also may view this allusion to death as a symbol of our own Lenten struggle to die to sin and be born anew at Easter. A Gospel of Passiontide in the Traditional form speaks of Jesus hiding himself, as we hide these images. Veiling statues also calls to mind Jesus’ hiding or veiling his divinity during his Passion. Another author likens the removal of these statues from our sight as one of the steps taken during this time in Lent, to hide and reduce more aspects or our faith, just as we had earlier put away the Gloria and Alleluia, and soon lose bells and the Mass itself at the end of Holy Week. Our churches today still may cover statues and crosses, or leave them revealed. The veils are removed before the Easter Vigil Mass. Soon we will enter Holy Week, when we hear, read, and dwell on the Passion, Crucifixion and Death, and Resurrection of our Lord.

Yesterday, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott issued a “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order and directed the closure of in-person operations for all non-essential businesses. The governor’s order directs “Vermonters to stay at home, leaving only for essential reasons, critical to health and safety. If leaving the home, Vermonters should adhere to social distancing policies, including remaining six feet from others (except for those with whom they share a home) and thoroughly and regularly washing hands. Effective March 25, 2020, at 5 p.m., all businesses and not-for-profit entities not expressly exempted in the order must suspend all in-person business operations. Operations that can be conducted online or by phone, or sales that can be facilitated with curbside pickup or delivery only, can continue.” In keeping with the governor’s order, Burlington Bishop Christopher Coyne has directed that all Catholic churches, chapels and shrines throughout the state be closed as of 5 p.m. today and that all “non-essential” employees of the Catholic community (as defined by the governor’s order) work remotely as need be. During these challenging times, Catholics can still participate in devotions and worship remotely by tuning into daily 12:05 p.m. Mass (Monday through Friday) and Sundays at 10 a.m., live rosary at 11:15 a.m. and many other spiritual engagement activities. For the weekly schedule of activities visit: vermontcatholic.org/spiritualresources. VERMONT CATHOLIC VERMONT MARCH 25, 2020

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Through these trying times, we are asking that you continue with your weekly contributions by mailing a check into the parish office at 113 Elmwood St, Burlington, VT, 05401. Fr. Harlow and the staff still need to pay our bills. Some parishioners have found it helpful to pay ahead through the month of April, and send in a check with a note detailing how much of this amount is weekly and what amount goes for the special collections. This would even be a good time for any additional contributions.

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For the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Thursday, March 19, 2020, we will hold a Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration at 5:30 PM in the upstairs church. At 6:30 PM, we will pray the Rosary. Mass, which will be last public Mass at the Cathedral until further notice, will start at 7 PM. The upstairs church will be open for private prayer on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday from 7 - 8 PM. Confessions will be available on Saturday from 2 - 3 PM and Monday from 7 - 8 PM.

The Solemnity of Saint Joseph is on March 19th, and this year, it will be a two-part celebration. Because our parish hall is used during the week for the St. Joseph Spectrum Warming Shelter, the social part of the feast will be celebrated on Sunday, March 15th after the 10 AM Mass. There will be a special coffee hour/pot luck brunch. We are requesting that each family attending bring a hot dish or dessert to share. We hope to receive a variety of ethnic foods from our diverse community as well as many beloved American dishes from our parish families. There will be a sign-up sheet in the Parish Hall at the coffee hour this weekend. If you want to sign-up and did not have the opportunity, please call Dot Commo at (802) 863-5678. We hope as many parishioners as possible will come in order to make this a true parish celebration of our Patron, Saint Joseph! The devotional portion or our celebration will take place on the actual feast day, March 19th. Please see the notice below for details. We hope as many people as possible will attend both the social and devotional parts of this great feast!The Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima will visit the Cathedral of St. Joseph from Saturday, March 7 to Saturday, March 21. While Our Lady is with us, we ask everyone to pray for religious vocations under the patronage of St. Joseph. To promote this petition, special devotions will be held at the Cathedral on the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Thursday, March 19. The World Apostolate of Fatima - Our Lady’s Blue Army, Diocese of Burlington will sponsor the evening’s events and are responsible for the statue's visit, evening of devotions, and Holy Mass. Here is the schedule of devotions on this Solemnity: Eucharistic Adoration and Confessions - 5:30 - 6:30 PM Rosary - 6:30 PM Mass - 7:00 PM

Effective March 14, 2020, Bishop Christopher J. Coyne has suspended the obligation for all Catholics to attend Sunday Mass. Sunday Mass will still be offered but the obligation has been lifted. The Diocese is closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation and following the advice of public officials in order to ensure the health and well-being of our community, especially the most vulnerable among us. For TV Mass options and updates on COVID-19 preventative measures visit: https://www.vermontcatholic.org/covid-19/. Through prayer and trust in the Lord, we will get through this together. Notice from Bishop Christopher J. Coyne: Sunday Mass Obligation Suspended ELLEN KANE VERMONT 0 COMMENTS MARCH 14, 2020

John Fisher’s (corrected spelling) connection to St. Joseph Church, which would eventually become the cathedral of the Diocese of Burlington, began the day he was baptized in the church five days after his birth in 1940, the tenth of 14 children to parents of French Canadian ancestry. The family’s strong faith in God and inclusion in the faith family of St. Joseph Parish strengthened them after the death of Fisher’s father, leaving his mother to raise 12 children alone. After marrying and beginning a family of seven children, the parish that Fisher loved remained the pivotal aspect of his family’s faith and schooling. During the 1990s, when the Internet was born, Fisher began writing website code while employed at IBM and created a website for his department as well as a family website for photos, events, his French-Canadian genealogy and an interest in astronomy. During these years, explained Fisher, the church and the parish were undergoing renovations and changes due to Vatican II. “I could see that during these changes items dear to the parish were going away,” he said, noting, among them, the huge painting of the Last Supper painted by Sinai Richer in 1923, and a memorial to the 633 parishioners who served in the military in World War II and the 22 who gave their lives. “I thought that something should be done to keep people aware of these pieces of our parish history. While researching in the diocesan archives, I came across the insurance company photos of both the old Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and of St. Joseph’s. The cathedral had burned in 1972 and there were many changes at St. Joseph’s. I decided to scan all the photos and put them on my website. The parishioners of both churches would surely enjoy them,” Fisher recalled. Whenever the ardent archivist comes across an historical piece of information about the Cathedral of St. Joseph he adds it to his website. Fisher explained that parishioners recognize his passion for parish history and often bring him their own treasures which he photographs or scans and presents to the pastor or adds to the parish historical archive. “Two of these were very significant,” he noted. “An old photo of the early church and a photo of the carpenters in the church about a year before it was completed. It was so historically interesting that I did about a year of research on the photo and the photographer and even had a reunion of the photographer’s descendants from out of state, here in Burlington. Both original photos are now in the parish rectory.” Most recently Fisher has added photos of two major cathedral projects: renovation and replacement of the steeple and the steps in front of the church. “I created a new webpage for each event and captured some really great photos along the way. The contractor also gave us some really great drone photos of their steeple effort,” he said. Fisher explained the value of photo archives, saying, “One can write the detailed history of a church or a parish, and the reader can form an image based on what they have read, but as they say, ‘A picture is worth a thousand words.’ In my great 1887 photo of the inside of St Joseph’s, I could describe the interior and the 12 carpenters and what each carpenter is holding; however, the photo says it all; and this event only happened for a moment in time, but it has now been captured and available for all to view today.” https://vermontcatholic.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?m=31181&i=653855&p=14

Since the 2018 Diocesan Synod, the Catholic community in Vermont has been pursuing the synod goals of increased and improved evangelization and communication efforts to assist in building more vibrant parishes; a focus on parish website improvement has been one of the first communication initiatives. “I really like the eCatholic tool. I think all the parish (sites) using it that I’ve seen look very clean and appealing,” said Arthur “Jay” Fisher, website administrator for St. Joseph Cathedral Parish in Burlington. “The website is about good marketing.” eCatholic’s mobile-friendly websites are easy to update and manage. Their dynamic and engaging templates and content create a unified, consistent and connected digital presence for Catholic parishes throughout Vermont. “Our traffic has increased month over month since going live in early October,” Fisher said, noting that there were 564 page views by 178 unique users on Christmas Eve alone. For the Cathedral’s website, Mass times, bulletins, the calendar and news sections are the most visited pages. Photo albums, music, architecture and a post about the Vietnamese Mass have also all been visited by hundreds of viewers. A person’s average amount of time spent browsing the Cathedral parish website is more than three minutes, with an average of more than three pages visited. (A general website statistic is that any visit that lasts longer than two minutes is impressive.) “Our Contact Us, Join our Parish and Join the Parishioners’ Email List form have had good response allowing us to update our census data,” Fisher reported. “I was speechless when I saw the amount of traffic on our website,” said Father Lance Harlow, cathedral rector. “It confirmed for us the value of putting in the time and energy to make it accurate and also attractive.” Fisher said eCatholic is versatile and easy to use, but he emphasized the importance of keeping the parish site up to date: “We want to keep our parishioners informed and interested in what is next.” The quality of parish life brings people to the website to find out more about the cathedral, and the website attracts people to Masses, devotions and programs. “What we do as parishioners is on the website, and what they see on the website keeps them involved in the parish,” he continued. But the site is welcoming to visitors too. “The cathedral has become a place of pilgrimage for so many visitors,” Father Harlow said. “That means essentially, with the decreased number of families in the downtown area that our Mass participants are coming increasingly from outside the parish. So, we need to attract their attention and draw them in.” And according to the metrics collected on the site, that concept is working. “We want the site to be the first stop for our parishioners and visitors by having lots of content available as close as their smart phone,” Fisher said; more than half the visits are from people using their cell phones. Every parish in Vermont will transition to the eCatholic website platform within the next year and a half, but three fourths have already launched their new websites. To see the cathedral website, go to stjosephcathedralvt.org.

While Vermont has no reported cases of coronavirus at this time, Bishop Christopher J. Coyne of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington has released a notice to all parishes within the Diocese effective Wednesday, March 4, 2020, to temporarily suspend communion from the cup until further notice. Additionally, until further notice, the Sign of Peace at Mass is not to include any physical contact. The practice of holding hands during the Lord’s Prayer should cease as well. Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to limit potential exposure to viruses, such as the novel coronavirus, pastors have been asked to regularly communicate to their parishioners that if one is sick, he or she should stay home and not attend Mass. The obligation to attend Mass in such cases is lifted. Priests, lay ministers, and all present for liturgy should be mindful of and practice good hygiene measures. For additional information regarding the novel coronavirus and preventative measures, please visit the CDC’s website: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html